Actually, it does not take a fundamental redesign to add this feature. It
would simply require a new axis like all-descendants. Furthermore, I
expressed an opinion that it seemed overly cumbersome to indicate the entire
parse tree *because* the ability to apply certain tests to every node (e.g.
give me every node except those having a certain ancestor) is quite useful
in a variety of circumstances. You declared that you didn't believe there
was a problem. Is there some reason for this belief (i.e. something that
would follow the word *because*)?
John Boyer
Software Development Manager
PureEdge Solutions Inc. (formerly UWI.Com)
Creating Binding E-Commerce
jboyer@PureEdge.com
-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-ietf-xmldsig-request@w3.org
[mailto:w3c-ietf-xmldsig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of James Clark
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 7:40 PM
To: John Boyer
Cc: XML DSig; Steven_DeRose@Brown.edu
Subject: Re: Meaning of /descendant-or-self::node()
John Boyer wrote:
> Do you think there is any possibility that this might get fixed at some
> point in the future?
I don't think there is any possibility whatever that the meaning of
/descendant-or-self::node() will change. You can't fundamentally
redesign a spec after it's become a Recommendation. (I don't agree, by
the way, that the current design is flawed in this respect, but that's
academic at this point.)
James